At the fringes of the universes...



I've heard a few mp3s from William Shatner's new album, a collaboration with alt.rock piano man Ben Folds. I'm not sure quite what to think. Clearly Shatner and Folds are aware that a fair percentage of the album's sales will be to hipsters looking for a kitsch ironyfest, and they give the hipsters a few self-consciously funny moments (like the cover of Pulp's "Common People" and the almost laugh-out loud "You'll Have Time"), but there are also some surprisingly serious moments. No doubt the more hardcore kitsch seekers will find laughs even in the unaccompanied spoken word piece in which Shatner addresses his dead wife, on the grounds that the purest kitsch doesn't know it's kitsch, but I'm more inclined to cut Shatner slack for trying to address something serious in a straightforward way. There's also the fact that Aimee Mann, Joe Jackson, Adrian Belew, and Henry Rollins contributed to the album. (Not that Rollins has done anything I've liked since Black Flag's early classic hardcore album, Damaged, but still....)



Whether this is something I'll actually want to listen to in full, and pay for, is another question. After all, how many times would I have listened to that Spaced Out collection of Shatner and Nimoy tunes? Twice? But some of this stuff is pretty entertaining. The question is whether it has more staying power than just novelty appeal.



Meanwhile, according to Outpost Gallifrey, someone's developing a new K9 TV series. It probably wouldn't be awful, and likely wouldn't harm Doctor Who at all, but K9 is a sidekick, not a lead character. It's been tried unsuccessfully before, too, though with a better script it might have succeeded (Sarah Jane Smith was a good choice for lead character). What's interesting about this proposed series is that the producers have a guy who wrote for both Doctor Who and Wallace and Gromit. Can't find anything about it on the company's website yet.



Meanwhile, over at the Complete Starfleet Library... I'm still a week or two away from finishing the renovations. I will be so glad to be done. And then I'll start thinking about how best to do the next little content upgrade I want to do.



(Now playing: On!Air!Library!, "Feb.," On!Air!Library!)